Exploring American Folk Music

by Kip Lornell

  This book focuses upon the traditional music that developed in the United States between the late nineteenth century and today. American folk music coexists alongside popular and elite music, and frequently interacts with these other levels of musical culture. For the most part, these interactions consist of informing or reminding popular culture of its roots. Folk music is rarely heard over the radio or seen on television today; nonetheless thousands of folk music recordings are available, and folk festivals of every size and description abound in the United States. In the increasingly rare full-service music stores across the country as well as online businesses, the consumer is offered CDs and cassettes in categories such as “polka,” “Cajun,” “bluegrass,” “zydeco,” “blues,” and other grassroot forms of American music. Furthermore, there are hundreds of Web sites devoted to all of the forms of grassroot American music, and these can be found through the use of any of the Web’s many search engines.

  The periodic revival of interest in our heritage and ethnicity often expresses itself musically. This occurred most dramatically during the “folk revival” of the early 1960s when many people discovered blues and hillbilly music. Popular musicians such as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, John Lennon, and Janis Joplin drew from the wellspring of folk music to help create the music of the “British Invasion,” San Francisco’s “psychedelic rock,” and folk rock. In a more contemporary vein hip-hop’s use of poetic, simple, often obscene, rhymes stems directly from the African American tradition of toasts and the dozens (an insult game often played by males). The chanted/sung lyrics also have strong roots in the sermons performed in many black Baptist churches. The use of syncopation in the bass lines and drum patterns follows a tradition that relates back to early jazz, ragtime, and ultimately to West African drumming. The “swing revival” of the late 1990s and early 2000s, fronted by groups such as Big Voodoo Daddy, the Brian Sezter Orchestra, and Swing Six, looks back to the cool days of the middle twentieth century when the two Louis (Jordan and Prima) reigned. Their music, of course, drew upon the blues, marching brass bands, and other earlier forms of folk and folk-based music. And so the cycles continue with the “new” music being informed by its predecessors, many of which are folk or folk-based.

  BRED IN THE BONE

  In our pastoral vision, folk music emanates from homogeneous, static, rural communities, but the twenty-first-century reality is of increased mobility and electronic communication. Nonetheless these ties to a community are essential in any discussion of contemporary American folk music. Robertson Davies wrote a wonderful book, Bred in the Bone, which takes its title from an expression meaning that certain traits become culturally ingrained. We follow them almost unconsciously because they are part of our daily lives. Such “breeding” reflects regionalism, of course, but it implies something more subtle and possibly profound. These are the traditions and patterns inculcated by way of our immediate surrounding and our families. Highly respected twentieth-century American folk musicians, such as Lydia Mendoza (Tex-Mex), Muddy Waters (blues), Nathan Abshire (Cajun), Bill Monroe (bluegrass), or Roberta Martin (gospel), remained intrinsically tied to the music they inherited. Some people deliberately and very willfully shed their heritage, renouncing family and community to begin anew. Such a transformation reflects conscious choice, sometimes born of necessity or even pure survival. However, we cannot fully escape our pronounced familial influences.

  Folk musicians usually come from families or small communities immersed in the music. Wade Ward, for example, who grew up in Galax, Virginia, in the late nineteenth century came to embody many of its values and traits in his life and music. Older members of his immediate family played the fiddle and banjo, which Ward also embraced. In short, Wade Ward became a product not only of the Upland South, but more specifically of the Grayson County/Blue Ridge community and his extended families. His music and lifestyle were bred in the bone.

  Can you still be a folk musician in the early twenty-first century? It might be increasingly difficult as we become more entangled in technology and as Wal-Marts become even more ubiquitous, but I believe the answer is yes. Look at accordion-playing Santiago Jimenez, Jr., as one example. Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1944, his father was a highly respected conjunto (Tex-Mex) musician and his older brother, “Flaco,” is an internationally recognized master of the accordion. Jimenez performs his jaunting conjunto sounds throughout Texas and has recorded scores of records for small regional labels as well as compact discs for Arhoolie Records and Rounder Records. Although his older rancheros, polkas, and waltzes may sound archaic to ears that are used to Selena or even Ricky Martin, Jimenez has already helped to inspire a generation of musicians born in the 1960s and 1970s. These new kings and queens of conjunto will be carrying on this tradition (albeit always morphing into something slightly different, of course) well into the twenty-first century.

  Wade Ward with the Bogtrotters. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  A distinction needs to be made between a folk musician such as Ward and those from outside of his community who learn to play folk music. Wade himself served as the mentor to dozens of musicians, including many younger people who grew up far from Grayson County, Virginia. The majority of these musicians learned from Ward during the 1960s at folk festival workshops, through visiting his home, or by listening to his numerous recordings. Some of these musicians spent months living near Ward and learned to play highly accomplished renderings of his versions of well-traveled fiddle and banjo tunes such as “Fox Chase” or “Sally Anne.”

  I view these musicians as interpreters of Ward’s music. Similarly, a third-generation Finnish American from Minnesota who visits the Mississippi Delta to learn the work songs of black Americans or a New England–bred Dartmouth-trained WASP who travels to El Paso, Texas, to become a conjunto musician is consciously stepping out of his or her own well-worn shoes to try on something new. These field hollers or polkas might be performed quite well by accomplished musicians; nonetheless, these remain interpretations. There is nothing wrong with this. Nor is there anything improper with a black woman such as Jessye Norman singing Italian opera or German lieder. These choices reflect options that we are (fortunately) able to make.

  * * *

  MUSICAL EXAMPLE

  Wade Ward (banjo) and Glen Smith (fiddle) played together for many years around Galax, Virginia. This well-known piece is often performed for square dancing and displays Ward’s virtuoso clawhammer banjo technique. “Clawhammer” refers to a style of brushing the banjo strings with the back of one’s fingers on the downstroke, which predates the better-known bluegrass style. This performance was recorded on location in the middle 1960s.

  Title “Sally Goodin’”

  Performers Glen Smith, fiddle; Wade Ward, banjo

  Instruments fiddle and banjo

  Length 1:11

  Musical Characteristics

  1. The lead melody is played on both the fiddle and banjo.

  2. It is cast in a simple ab song form that repeats throughout.

  3. They perform this piece at a rapid tempo.

  4. Neither instrument takes a solo break.

  5. “Sally Goodin’” is in a major tonality.

  This performance was originally issued on Smithsonian Folkways 3802.

  * * *

  But if we take a culturally based view of music and music making, then hearing a non-Mexican playing conjunto back home in Milford, New Hampshire, is simply not the same experience as listening to Santiago Jimenez, Jr., performing at a San Antonio cantina. It’s similar to the intangible but distinctive difference between pouring my father-in-law’s homemade muskadine syrup over pancakes in his Bossier City, Louisiana, home and watching my own Swedish American mother struggle to replicate the same event in her Cape Cod home. The pancake and syrup may taste similar but the experience (the location, the smells—its essence) is very different.

  The aural differences between Ward’s music and that of his students may be slight;
however, the master’s music reflects subtle, sometimes intangible, cultural and family attributes missing from his students’ interpretations. Qualities tangential to the music itself (expressions that easily roll off of one’s tongue, racial attitudes, stories about local musicians, shared references that you don’t need to explain, even diet) encompass a lifestyle and breeding that one cannot learn merely by listening to Ward’s recordings or even by living in Grayson County, Virginia, for several years. Had Wade Ward lived into the 2000s, he would have been surprised by some of the changes in his home county. Not only have the local roads been improved but also many of the local furniture factories have been closed or retooled. However, the biggest change is the notable influx of Hispanic Americans who have arrived since the early 1990s to work on local farms and in factories. The result is daily Spanish-language broadcasting on the local radio station and bilingual signs now found in many stores in Galax.

  The Harps of Melody (1980). Courtesy of Clara Anderson.

  You can think of Wade Ward’s music students as expatriates or visitors. No matter how fluently they learn to speak the (musical) language and how well they fit into the culture, they remain “outsiders.” Musicians occupying this category may play folk music well, but they cannot be considered folk musicians. In short, they play folk music but are not themselves folk musicians. Such interpreters of folk music are often called revivalists, and their role will be discussed later in this book.

  Let me relate another personal example to illustrate this concept. I spent four years researching and interviewing black American gospel quartet singers in Memphis for my doctoral dissertation and would occasionally sit in and sing with the groups. I can tell you the history of the genre, talk about its important figures, and relate anecdotes about gospel quartet contests, but I can never tell you what it was like to be an African American quartet singer during the genre’s golden age of the 1940s. In many regards I became a very well informed observer who now understands this musical community in ways that certainly eluded the singers themselves. But because I didn’t live and perform in the same ways that Clara Anderson, James Darling, and Elijah Jones did for decades, I can only interpret what I learned. For many musicians learning folk music this participant-observer role is critical, but such musicians should never be mistaken for the genuine item.

  It is clear that the importance of American folk music extends well beyond its immediate communities. Folk music has influenced the work of American composers such as Aaron Copland—his well-known “Appalachian Spring” provides a prime example—and Charles Ives as well as rock musicians on the order of the Rolling Stones, the Cowboy Junkies, the Allman Brothers Band, and Wilco. Such musicians are not “folk,” but they sound closer to their folk roots because of their appreciation of Lead Belly, Robert Johnson, Uncle Dave Macon, Howlin’ Wolf, Riley Puckett, and Patsy Montana. These earlier musicians grew up in a society closer to the ones found in idealized rural folk communities, albeit during four decades (1900–1940) of startling transitions.

  In addition to describing the genres of traditional music, this book discusses the impact of the folk revivals and some of their strongest and most influential personalities, such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Pete Seeger. I endorse Dick Weissman’s term “folk-based” to describe these professional and semiprofessional musicians with a strong interest in various types of traditional music (see Sandberg and Weissman 1989). Folk-based performers form an important part of the story because of their strong impact on our national consciousness, their commercialization of the more traditional styles, and their clear, unwavering respect for their own musical heritages.

  LISTENING TO AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC

  A formal background in music theory, ear-training, and harmony is not necessary to use this textbook, nor will you have to be able to read notated musical transcriptions. However, you will be required to listen carefully to the musical examples that illustrate this book and that are discussed in detail. These basic listening skills are not difficult to obtain, though this is an active process that is critical in appreciating any kind of music. They can be applied to nearly any form of music from punk rock, Bill Monroe, and blues to hip-hop.

  Here are some of the key terms that are useful in listening to and describing music:

  Pitch is a single tone or note, which is produced by vibrating air. The faster the air vibrates, the higher the pitch; a slower rate of vibration causes a lower pitch. Pitches fall into three basic registers: low, middle, and high.

  A tone describes a sound with a definite pitch.

  The notes on a piano are organized into systems that are usually referred to as scales. Some are a simple series of five notes, which constitute a pentatonic scale. The organization of most notes fall into the category of major and minor scales.

  The first and last names of the eight pitches in a scale have the same name, which is known as its tonic.

  An interval measures the distance in pitch between two tones.

  Two simultaneous tones create an interval, but three or more simultaneous pitches are perceived as a chord. In this book we will most often refer to the tonic chord (built upon the first tone of a scale), the subdominant chord (built on the fourth tone), and the dominant chord (built upon the fifth scale tone).

  The system of combining chords is known as harmony and it forms the basis for our folk and popular music.

  A series of individual tones makes up a melody. If a melody is derived from a series of close intervals, usually a second or whole step in a major scale, it is referred to as conjunctive. American folk songs tend to be conjunctive. Tunes that contain larger intervals, more than a third, are disjunctive.

  Rhythm refers to the long and short patterns of duration, which can be simple or complex, regular or irregular. The rhythm generates an energy, an impulse that drives the music forward in interesting ways.

  Meter is what organizes the rhythm of music, just as it orders the reading of poetry. American folk music is almost always organized in measured beat patterns of duple (two) meter or triple (three) meter.

  One way to create rhythmic interest is to accent beats unexpectedly. This is called syncopation, and it is a fundamental rhythmic element of African American music from ragtime master Scott Joplin to the “funk” music of Bootsy Collins, Parliament Psychedelic, and George Clinton.

  Dynamics refer to the degree of loudness or softness of music.

  The unique tonal quality that can be attributed to all voices and instruments is its timbre. Today’s electronic synthesizers are able to reproduce the sound of a harmonica, a clarinet, even a piano with uncanny accuracy.

  Texture is another important musical concept that refers to the density of sound. It is directly related to the number of musical lines sounding at a particular time during a musical performance. Music can be texturally rich and full at one extreme or spare and thin at the other. A monophonic texture means a single, unaccompanied melodic line. A melody that is in the foreground and supported by harmonic underpinning results in a homophonic texture, which is most common in American folk music.

  All of our folk genres are cast into forms—the basic structure or shape of a piece of music. Binary (two-part or ab) and ternary (three-part or aba) are the most common forms you will encounter in American folk music. Ballads are often performed in strophic form—the same music is used for each stanza.

  Let’s close with two other useful concepts: genre and style. A genre refers to a specific category of music, such as blues, bluegrass, and ragtime. Style refers to a subset within the genre. In blues, for example, Piedmont, Delta, and Chicago exemplify some of the regional styles that constitute the blues tradition.

  INSTRUMENTS

  Many different instruments are utilized by musicians throughout the United States. The use of these instruments is rarely limited to one genre of music; violins/fiddles are heard in symphony orchestras, Ukrainian American bands, bluegrass quintets, and rock bands. On the other hand, accordions are rarel
y heard in contemporary popular music or in chamber music groups.

  Folk musicians use well-known instruments, including pianos, string bass, and drums. They also perform on such less orthodox instruments as the kazoo, one-string bass, and jugs. The use of particular instruments, however, frequently depends partially on regional or ethnic background as well as personal preference and family traditions. Some of them have surprisingly long histories that sometimes cross continents and many decades. Most of these instruments are acoustic models, although electrification and amplification have become increasingly common since World War II.

  Accordion

  The accordion enjoyed a late-twentieth-century renaissance among folk musicians from the bayous of Louisiana directly northward to the Nebraska plains. “Squeeze boxes” were originally promoted by the waves of European immigrants, usually German, Irish, French, and Italian, who commonly used this instrument. Because of its durability, volume, and portability the accordion makes an ideal instrument for dance music.

  Accordions, a European invention, come in several distinctive variations. Some are free reed instruments that use a keyboard similar to those found on a piano and have a range of up to five octaves. The smaller accordion is one-half to one-third the size of the piano style and its reeds are activated by depressing a corresponding small button. Both piano and button accordions require that the performer squeeze the instrument, forcing air in and out of the bellows.

  The more versatile piano accordion is favored by many of the African American zydeco musicians like Clifton Chenier and Buckwheat Zydeco from the Texas/Louisiana border country. Polka musicians like Frankie Yankovic or Li’l Wally Jagiello (who are both of central European background) favor a button-style accordion, specifically the German concertina. Marc Savoy, Ally Young, and other French Louisianans also prefer the smaller accordions.